Thursday’s mishap came 18 months after a stampede at the overcrowded and narrow foot-over-bridge at Parel’s Prabhadevi Station killed 23 people. Then on July 3 last year, a large portion of a bridge connecting the East and West parts of the Andheri suburb collapsed at the Andheri station. A woman injured in the accident died four days later.

On social media, there was all-round condemnation for the administrative failure to maintain the city’s crumbling infrastructure. Maharashtra is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, while the civic body, the richest in the country, is controlled by its ally, the Shiv Sena. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, also of the BJP, was also at the receiving end of anger, amid calls from the Congress for his resignation.

Every such act of negligence by the government should be counted as state-sponsored murder of its citizens. Makes one feel so angry and helpless. We use the local train and these stations daily and it's impossible now to not feel paranoid. Shame. #MumbaiBridgeCollapse

I walk on that cst bridge everyday, i had classmates who walked over it 30 minutes before this happened,I’m sad and I’m angry,this is THE MAIN MUMBAI TRAIN STATION,THE BMC HEAD OFFICE IS RIGHT THERE & THEY DONT CARE, I can’t believe until bridges fall and people die no one cares

Dear Mumbaikars. You are getting an expensive costal road with 2000 free parkings. Why are you asking the angry politicians about bridges and FOBs that are killing people? 😡😡 summon up the spirit of Mumbai and carry on!! pic.twitter.com/iU2cieSm7r

Can the government solve the problem by renaming the bridge, asked comedian Atul Khatri, invoking the BJP’s Hindutva renaming spree as part of which, among other things, Mughal Sarai railway station became Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya junction and Allahabad became Prayagraj.

Dear Govt. - A bridge has collapsed in Mumbai. What are you going to do about it??

BJP spokesperson Sanju Verma’s remarks to the Times Now news channel sparked another wave of fury on Twitter. Speaking to journalist Navika Kumar, Verma described the incident as a “natural calamity” rather than an instance of governance deficit and said that “a large part of the blame was on pedestrians”.

The more crassness spokespersons like @Sanju_Verma_ show about this horrific tragedy, the more the BJP will alienate the citizens of Mumbai. This bridge collapse has shocked the city, but more shocking is the buck passing and this kind of shamelessness of the ruling establishment https://t.co/CZSzKWRJRS

At least the BJP hasn’t blamed Jawaharlal Nehru yet, pointed out YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, in a reference to the party’s penchant for holding the country’s first prime minister responsible for contemporary India’s ills.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal: CST bridge falls under BMC, not Indian Railways.Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai: Bridge comes under the railways!Why stop at this shameless BJP & Shiv Sena when you can blame #Nehru ji, he died just 19 years before the bridge was built? #CSTBridgeCollapse